We were so close…so close to the warm embrace of freedom. We were strong enough, fierce enough, brave enough, or so we thought. Surely, the pampered and spoiled morons in the Capitol didn't have the strength to oppose us, but then those we thought to be fools unleashed weapons of horror that we could never have fathomed in our darkest nightmares: genetically engineered monsters, poisonous gases, nuclear fire. It was all too much….
The sunlight scorches my eyes as I am pushed through the doorway towards the base of the scaffold's steps. I've spent the last month is perpetual darkness since my surrender. I try to lift my bruised and bloody hands in front of my face to shield it from the light, but the heavy shackles around my wrists hopelessly weigh them down. I haven't eaten in what must be days…or maybe even weeks. I've lost all concept of time. It doesn't really matter, a Peacekeeper who sees me struggling grabs my arms and throws them to my side as he pushes me towards the scaffolding. I guess the Capitol doesn't want anything blocking the faces of the condemned for their cameras. No doubt, this execution will be broadcast to the four corners of Panem.
My bare feet find the first step and I painfully begin to lift myself towards the top of the platform. I am the first in the line of the damned. As I look back to see the other eleven of my compatriots, I realize that their disgusting appearance must echo their own. No doubt, I am as pathetic, bloody, tortured, and mal-nourished as they are, but somehow, I hoped that I would look better at my death. I guess I shouldn't have expected less. After all, we walking corpses are all that remains of leaders of the districts who rebelled against the Capitol's tyranny.
The only one missing is Wells Prota, of District 13. It was his fiery rhetoric and stirring acts of courage which moved us all to fight for our freedom. As such, he and his District already paid the ultimate price: disappearing in the bright flash of a mushroom cloud. After 13's genocidal exit from the conflict, the other twelve of us realized that all resistance was hopeless. If the Capitol was willing to vaporize an entire civilization to win its victory, then we had no choice but to surrender. With any luck, the punishment would be ours alone and at least our families would live on.
I reach the top of the stairs, and feel the harsh grasp of a Peacekeeper pulling me forward. The sunlight is still blinding, but I suddenly become aware of a tremendous roar: a monstrous and inhuman sound produced by what must be hundreds of thousands gathered in front of me.
"And now, the first of the traitors…" an announcer exclaims over a loudspeaker thunderous enough to drown out the din of the crowd. "…Auric Sparks from District 1!" The way he says my name makes it seem distant and objective, like it no longer belongs to me, but rather like it's the epithet of some disease that humanity just discovered the cure for.
As an unseen band plays the Anthem of the Capitol over the screams of the onlookers, the Peacekeeper leads me over to a trap door built in the floor of the scaffold. He reaches up to the top of the gallows, pulls down a noose and tightly cinches it around my neck.
My eyes finally come into focus enough for me to see what's before me. Sitting on either side of the Central Square in front of the Presidential Mansion is a sea of thousands of bright colors: pinks, yellows, blues, greens…the gaudy excuse for fashion that the Capitol folk can't live without, but has kept my family fed for at least three generations. In my old life that seems so distant now, I was a jeweler…taught to create gold and silver bobbles that decorated the necks, wrists, fingers, and ears of rich Capitolites by my father, just as he was taught by his father before him. Had I not led to my District to war, it probably would be the skill that I lovingly passed to my daughter…
Unwilling to let my last few thoughts be taken up by a painful future that would never be, I look around to see more of my surroundings. One by one, the other rebel leaders are led to their trap doors and nooses as well. Soon, we form a pitiful line across the top of the scaffold, like fish hung on a line.
President Nero Snow gazes down at us from the balcony of the Presidential Mansion like a predator who has just cornered his helpless prey. He practically licks his lips in anticipation as the announcer on the loudspeaker lists our manifold crimes against the state….some true, most not. His wife sits next to him on the balcony with their two-year old son, Coriolanus, bouncing on her lap. By the expression on the toddler's face, you would think he was watching clowns do tricks underneath a circus tent. I cannot believe that anyone would let their child watch this with such perverted anticipation. It was this very break with reality, this disgusting dehumanization of the districts that drove us to rebel in the first place. It seems the Captiolites have learned absolutely nothing at all….
President Snow interrupts my chain of thought by rising to his feet and walking to a podium overlooking the crowd. With a wave of his hand, he silences both the music and the onlookers before speaking.
"Brave Citizens of the Capitol," he begins with a sinister grin, "the past few months have rocked us to our very core. The Districts, led by these criminals you see brought before you now, tried to destroy this country that we have worked so hard to create. Their greed, lust for power, and lack of common decency have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocents…."
"He continues to speak. I don't believe a single word he ways and neither do my fellow rebel leaders. We know why we fought. We were tired of living under the yolk of these devils. We were tired of living in fear, scrounging for scraps as the Capitol elite feasted at the table we had set for them. The seeds of my personal rebellion were sown long ago, when I had to watch my wife die giving birth to my child because the medicine that could save her was reserved for Capitol citizens only. Thirteen years ago, as I held my newborn daughter in my arms, I saw the spark of life slowly leave my wife's eyes as she managed to utter her final words:
"Take care of her, Auric," she said to me. "Fight for her…"
"I promise," I managed to choke out before her head fell back into her pillow and the midwife closed her eyes for the last time.
After the fighting started, I hid my daughter with old friends in the mountains between District 1 and District 2. I knew she would be safe there. If the rebellion succeeded, I would come for her and we would begin our new life. If the rebellion failed, then she would change her identity and grow old knowing that her father was a man of honor. Hopefully, she will never forget me, but I couldn't blame her if she did.
President Snow continues his self-serving, ego stroking rant.
"Why won't he just finish so they can hang me already?" I think to myself, but then Snow says something that catches my attention.
"But what the Districts must understand, is that treason does not end with the traitor," Snow says with an even more devious grin. "It is a crime, that marks a people and stains them with a blood that must be paid for by every subsequent generation.
That is why the punishment will not end with the execution of those who you see before you today, but will continue for all ages to come!" The crowd cheers as the twelve of us look at each other across the gallows. None of us know what Snow means, but we simultaneously feel the coldest fear in the pits of our stomachs that we have ever experienced.
"As President of Panem," Snow continues over the loudspeaker, " I hereby decree that each year, the twelve districts of Panem shall offer up in tribute one young man and woman to be trained in the art of survival, and be prepared to fight to the death…and these games for the entertainment of us victors shall begin at once with the children of the traitors before us today!"
Snow points to the far end of the square where twelve chariots begin making their way through the crowd, now on their feet in a wild and uncontrollable frenzy. I lurch forward against the rope around my neck, struggling to get a view of the pair in the first chariot, unable to believe that what Snow said could be true. However, the Peacekeeper runs up and holds me in place.
As the chariots draw near, my worst terror becomes a reality. Sheena, my precious daughter, stands frozen with fear next to a boy who appears to be Wilkas Argent, the sixteen-year old son of Prius Argent, my second in command. Both are wrapped in Silver fabric and bound with golden chains, no doubt a sick nod to the industry of District 1, our home. I look over to the other rebel leaders, who shout and cry in agony as their children are presented before us as well, each dressed in a ridiculous and demeaning costume meant to mock our way of life for these Capitol fools.
"Forever more," Snow says completing his speech, "Let this pageant of justice be known as THE HUNGER GAMES!"
I want to scream and bellow. I want to fight through these Peacekeepers and save my daughter from the horror that will soon be inflicted upon her, but I know that I am helpless. I have done enough by condemning her to this horrible fate. I face the fact that all I can do is look down on her with a kind face, and show her in my last moments, that her father loves her with every ounce of his being.
A Peacekeeper walks over to me and holds a microphone up to my mouth.
"Now," President Snow begins again, "I believe these criminals have some last words that they've prepared for us before sentence is carried out…."
The Peacekeeper holds his hand over the microphone and whispers in my ear.
"You're live, Scum. Just like you've been taught, or she pays for it," he says gesturing to Sheena down in the chariot.
In every one of my seemingly endless torture sessions, my interrogators made me a say a phrase that is now burned into my psyche…a phrase that I have come to despise. This morning, after the usual beating and flogging, I was informed that it would become the last thing I would ever utter in this life. Fearing only for my daughter's safety, I swallow whatever pride is left in my broken body and speak into the microphone:
"Glory be unto the Capitol, where treason is punished with the blood of traitors." My words echo through the massive square and whip the crowd up again. I again look down at Sheena who now has tears cascading down her beautiful face. Rage burns up from inside me. I cannot let those words of defeat and shame be the last thing she ever hears her father say, not when she's about to be subjected to some kind of violent, degrading pageant forced on her by enemies she never chose to fight. Before the Peacekeeper has the chance to pull away the microphone, something pops into my head. An old family saying my father would tell me when I complained that things were too hard.
"Sheena!" I shout into the microphone. The Peacekeeper is too stunned by my boldness to pull it away from me. My daughter's eyes look up to mine for the last time. "Whatever they do to you… may the odds be ever in your favor!"
My words echo through the square once again, but this time they are followed by dead silence. The crowd does not know what to make of my advice. Do they see me as a human being again? Do they care that they are about to see these innocent children paraded in front of them like lambs to a slaughter? I will never know.
I gaze up to President Snow whose look of triumph has been replaced by one of rage. He signals someone with a wave of his hand. Suddenly, I feel the trap door beneath me give way, and the rope around my neck goes taught….